specks of cerulean
by dreamsofdramione
Summary: Specks of cerulean dot the silver grey haze of his gaze. It's the last thing she sees before opening her eyes and it reminds her of something, no - someone - but it feels just out of reach, stretched the tiniest bit beyond the recesses of her mind and memories.


Specks of cerulean dot the silver grey haze of his gaze. It's the last thing she sees before opening her eyes and it reminds her of something, no - someone - but it feels just out of reach, stretched the tiniest bit beyond the recesses of her mind and memories.

Hermione Granger knows very few things presently. She knows her name, knows she's wandless and warded within an empty seaside estate with one free elf tending to her needs, and she knows there's more to the story of her stumbling there injured than meets the eye.

She thinks, maybe just maybe, if she can untangle the web of memories buried just below the surface, she might one day be free.

Her past is a blank slate.

No friends, no schools, not even parents to associate with formative years that should have shaped who she is now. But who exactly is she now? She starts with something she knows: her name, and as someone once said… though her mind thrums with restless tension as she tries to place just who... But someone, somewhere once asked what was in a name. And now, with her toes buried deep under the surface of the sand, she wonders what indeed. What a name truly is.

Though deep down she knows her name, Hermione doesn't roll off her tongue. Despite knowing, just _knowing_, it's been hers since the beginning, it feels like cotton in between her teeth, rough, sticking to her cheeks and unnatural on her tongue as she tries to say it aloud. Maybe it's the saltwater splashing the face of the rocks or the wind whipping up the cliffs and billowing between the trees, maybe it's her own throat's obvious disuse, either way, it comes out stilted. It sounds like a foreign word she can't properly place but something inside of her whispers otherwise.

She's only been awake for a few hours, if that. Finding no clocks in the part of the estate she dared to wander, the sun seems to track the time just fine. It's moved a quarter of the way through the sky, cresting in the middle and just now barely beginning to dip.

The breeze whips the wind around her but it's warm. There are flowers in bloom off in the distance, across the wide cliff in a field she can barely see. She thinks it must be spring, or shortly before between the splotches of color and the warmth of the breeze tangling her curls.

Hermione has always been observant. Oftentimes absurdly so and as such, she collects each piece of information about the climate, the sand, the wind, and the trees and stacks them neatly in a corner of her seemingly unfilled mind under the simple label of facts.

The list grows throughout the day as she meanders her way back inside and discovers she quite likes the tea the elf — No, Minnie she reminds herself — the tea Minnie has made with a dash of milk and two cubes of sugar. She knows now she likes tea made this way and little toast rounds with a thin layer of jam.

By the time the sun sets, sinking below the line of trees just beyond where she felt the wards, she knows she feels trapped. Trapped within this sprawling estate and mostly alone, but also trapped within her own mind. Her head has throbbed a few times, the insides pulse with the unknown and Minnie has been supplying her with a potion of some kind each time it flares as she tries to focus on what's hidden in the depths she can't seem to reach.

The next day passes much the same. Small tidbits slot into place forming and shaping some version of herself she doesn't seem to truly know beyond simple likes and dislikes. Each time the sun rises, a total of seven based on the marks in her leather bound journal, Hermione somehow feels less and less certain of the litany of facts she's collected and hoarded away within the ragged pages of the book she'd found to record them in.

Meaningless observations pile up as time crawls by. She thinks if she doesn't write down each and every new speck of information, she'll somehow lose it all again and have to start all over. How long would it take if she woke up again with a few megar facts to learn what she's recorded? When might she learn the rain soothes her to sleep or the way the wind dries out just the tip of her nose if she sits on the cliffs too long?

Spring turns to summer and days bleed together, single scratches adding up one after another until a page is full and the bound journal is stuffed with meaningless tidbits of information the surprisingly well stocked library has supplied.

Hermione now knows her mind has been altered. Though she thinks she knew that before, her months of research on memory charms and spells have yielded few definite answers. A nagging suspicion in the back of her mind thinks she may have known it was coming. Somehow, unlike most cases she's poured over the last few months, her mind feels like it had a clean sweep. Unlike Obliviation, there seems to be small things that trigger unrelated memories. She'll feel a faint hint of recognition from time to time with certain books, certain passages. Never inside the house, and only a handful of times by the sea, but she's felt her fair share nonetheless. Legilimency seems to fit the bill, and she thinks maybe she was an Occlumens, fears she may have even done this herself.

Memories and moments feel just out of reach, as if barricaded behind high walls and hoarded for a time she isn't certain will ever come.

Seventy four days in, she finally feels a sense of relief as she dreams for the first time in months. Night after night they continue and Hermione finds herself hoping for answers. Dreams seem to be her only true glimpses of what might have once been her life. Some nights she feels calloused hands glide along her curves, hears mumbled promises of safety whispered against her skin, and searing kisses branding every inch of her flesh. Flashes of nights spent tangled in sheets and times pressed against the cold wall of a shower as blood or mud or something equally disconcerting circles the drain haunt her for weeks. Strong hands grip her sides as someone shields her from a green blast before the tug of remembered apparition wakes her to soaked silk sheets and beads of sweat gathering at her temples.

Sitting up in the sprawling four poster bed that could easily fit ten of her with room to spare, wet silk clinging to her bare legs, Hermione pictures dots of cerulean swimming in a sea of molten silver and feels the sting of swollen lips like a ghost on her own. A shiver trills up her spine and she reaches for her notebook, cataloging the memory to dissect before it slips back behind the wall she has yet to fully breach.

Slowly the summer turns to fall and the trees drop their leaves as the temperature dips day by day. The dreams have been steady, small glimpses that have yet to form a bigger picture are stocked in her small notebook now brimming with pieces to some seemingly unsolvable puzzle.

Her mind has been altered, her memories tucked away. Being able to recall with precision everything that has passed since she woke up in this daze proves it doesn't seem to be an ongoing problem. And as she traces it back to the beginning, when her eyes first fluttered open and the light drowned out everything in the room she now knows as her own, no obvious catalyst seems to emerge.

Just like the bits of information she's recorded from the books and the slivers of what she's sure was once reality she sees when she sleeps, Hermione begins dissecting the scars she's catalogued on her own body. They are, like the rest of the facts jamming the tiny notebook, irrefutable and wholly a part of who she is now, and who she once was as well.

A word that makes her shiver is carved into her arm, jagged peaks and puckered skin suggest some sort of cursed device. Other small slices and raised lines are dotted all over her body. She has a long thin scar between her ribs, a long line of speckled scars adorning her right thigh, and twelve other areas with barely there scars that, if magical healing weren't involved, all look to have been nearly lethal.

Hermione scratches the word _Soldier_ on the bottom of one of the last free pages in her journal. She quickly draws a line through it and instead writes _Scarred_ \- _War? Fight? Life threatening?_

It isn't until Winter is in full swing, snow dusting the cliffs and hanging off the bare branches of the trees she's tried too many times to count without success that a distinct _pop_ sounds from somewhere on the grounds. Eyes wide, mind whirling a million miles a minute, Hermione rushes from the worn leather chair she thinks of as her own in the library she's been all but living in and nearly topples her stack of books on her way.

The hair on her arm prickles as she walks quickly to the front door. They swing open without preamble and someone stumbles in, coated in blankets of snow and leaving wet boot prints in their wake. Shaking off the hood of the black robes, a flash of bright blond causes her breath to catch.

Somehow, some way, she just _knows_ his presence. Though she's not sure who he is or what it may mean, she doesn't feel threatened. From her spot in the hallway, leaning just against the wall, she watches Minnie take his cloak, listens to the mumbled conversation and stares at his hands, the same ones she thinks she may see when she closes her eyes. Minnie's head tilts in her direction and she sucks in a breath as the man at the door follows her gaze. When his eyes land on her, she feels paralyzed, pinned down by his stare and stunned where she stands before he takes a few steps in her direction.

Hermione doesn't even register Minnie's crack of disapparation as her palms press against the wall behind her. "Who - who are you?" she breathes when she knows he's finally close enough to hear.

He stops a mere foot away, close enough for her to see the light flakes of blue among the swirls of silver in his eyes yet somehow too far. Every fiber of her being is screaming for her to lean forward, to cup his cheeks and taste his breath, but she stays where she stands, not daring to move an inch until he answers.

She watches as his gaze flickers over every inch of her body. Dressed in simple robes with bare feet and hair that's too frizzy to tame without the aid of water and hours of dedication, she feels underwhelming in the worst possible way. Shifting from one foot to the other, she feels his eyes drag upward again. He bounces between her eyes, her lips, her cheeks, and tracks every dip and curve of her face as she tries to even out each breath, tries not to betray the way her nerve endings sizzle under the weight of his gaze.

His adam's apple bobs in his throat before he speaks. "I have something for you."

She can feel her brows crease with confusion as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a wand. The magic she's so sorely missed pulses to life in her veins as she reaches out and wraps her too thin fingers around the smooth wood. A small gasp slips between her lips when she feels her stifled magic begin to unfurl and fill every inch of her body. It tingles from the tips of her fingers to the tips of her toes and she's so enthralled by the sensation she nearly misses the quirk of his lip as he watches her in silence.

"This is mine, isn't it?" Even as she says it, she knows the answer. The way her magic thrums to life leaves little doubt.

He nods his assent but keeps his lips pressed together.

"I… I'm afraid I don't understand."

"You told me once a picture is worth a thousand words, Hermione. And while I don't come bearing images, we agreed how this would go. Will you trust me?"

"I…" She can feel her throat constricting, a mess of emotions running amok in every inch of her body as she looks between the silver-eyed blonde in front of her and the dark wood wand her magic seems to know so well. "I don't know," she whispers.

"Let me show you."

It doesn't sound like a question, but the way he's staring at her with a pleading look sure feels like one. Dipping her chin just once, Hermione holds her breath as he leans forward and rests his forehead against hers. Her eyes slide shut as she takes in a shuddering breath, the heat from his touch frying every strand of sense she has. She barely even hears the whispered _Legilimens_ before images flood her mind.

_Dark hallways span in front of her. Kids in school robes are laughing and joking with arms full of books and smiles plastered on her face. She's wearing a red and gold tie and her cheeks hurt from smiling._

_Harry - everyone calls him, is asking her about a horcrux and she shivers from the name alone. _

"_According to my calculations, we should have gotten them all. How is he still alive?" Harry mumbles, "I don't know."_

_The battle of Hogwarts comes and passes, bodies lay in rows with Phoenix bands tied around their arms waiting for families to come claim them for their own._

"_It should have killed him," Harry sobs into her shoulder, his whole body shaking from the effort to carry on. "He should be dead, Mione. Why won't he die?"_

_She's older, years have passed, and a blond bristles into the doorway of a safe house. "What's he doing here?" Ron mumbles next to her and she barely hears "Just give him a chance" before being swept into another glimpse._

_Rain beats on the tin roof, drowning out the sounds of some Order member in the throes of passion and she feels her cheeks burn when the blond looks at her with a raised brow. _

_Her leg hurts, or more accurately burn and tears streak her cheeks as she feels a warm hand cup the back of her neck and lift her off the ground. A strangled wail tears loose from her throat before the dizzying feeling of magical transport spins the entire world until all she sees is white walls and healers crowding around her. She yells "wait" but the blond backs away and she's unconscious before she knows it._

_Her back presses into the door behind her as strong arms wrap around her waist. She pants as he laves at the skin of her neck, tangling her fingers in his hair. His teeth scratch the sensitive flesh and she moans as he grinds himself against her. A whispered, "please," drives him to do it again._

_Blood clouds her vision, ash and smoke coat every square inch of her mouth. She can't even seem to cough it out, laying in the blood-soaked dirt and trying to will herself to form the word HELP. But nothing comes out, and her eyes slide shut again as she thinks I can't leave. Not yet. They need me. _He_ needs me._

_A ratty sheet is wrapped around her waist and the candles in the room cast a soft glow against his alabaster skin. Her fingers lightly trace the sharp line of his jaw and skate over his lips. She brushes a strand of stray blonde hair away from his face and he scrunches his nose, but his breaths remain even and she thinks he's still asleep. Three unbidden words rise up from her chest and sneak through her lips. She just wants to taste them on her tongue, to feel them slip against his skin and settle in the scant space between them. Laying back in the circle of his arms and pressing her cheek against his chest, she says it again. Then again, and again, and again until she's sure she's mumbling and asleep and she misses the slight twitch of his lips._

_When he says it, it's shouted, thrown in her face as she feels blood gush between her fingers like it's a curse. He says it's why he's sending her back. Why they have to follow through with their half-cocked idea to hide her after the fall of the Order. He says it like it's the worst thing in the world that _he_ loves _her_ and now must do something about it before she follows the path of her friends. _

_Droplets of rain slide down the single-pane window in the same safe house she saw earlier. She feels faint but alert. Her head pounds as he tries to dig into her memories. But nothing comes out. She doesn't even know them herself anymore after shutting them up and building wall after wall until they calcified and turned to solid rock around every memory she's ever had. _

_Hot tears spill down her cheeks but she doesn't know why. Then — nothing. The sea and the estate and Minnie and toast and jam finish off the flood of memories jumbled in her mind._

When she opens her eyes, mind still muddled but pieces of the puzzle she's been so desperately trying to solve finally slide into place and begin to form a picture. She whispers, "Draco," and watches his eyes widen as tears well up in her own.

Grief washes over her first, an overwhelming wave that crashes down upon her consciousness as she slides to the floor and sobs for what feels like hours.

She comes to at some point, seated in Draco's lap with strong arms surrounding her as she gasps for breath. "H - Harry," she sputters. "He was a horcrux…. And Ron… He… They got him."

"Shhh," he coaxes. "It was the only way. You knew it. He knew it. He did what he had to do."

"I know," she squeaks, because with her memory back and fully intact, she does. She remembers a tearful conversation over a hospital bed where she'd been ordered to stay as he'd said his goodbye. She remembers it all feeling wrong and raw and hurting so bad she couldn't even function.

The silence stretches on as she presses herself into his embrace. He's her anchor right now and she's half afraid that if she lets go, he'll disappear like everyone else and leave her alone in the estate with fresh memories so painful she doesn't even want to go on. After a long time, he whispers, "Do you remember everything else?"

She waits, swallows down the bile rising in her throat as she remembers the mechanics of their desperate plan. "You… you were… you are… a Death Eater." The words taste like acid on her tongue and she feels him suck in a breath. "But not really," she adds. "Not for years. A double agent. You… you joined the Order and fed us information."

Slowly, she lifts her head from his shoulder and meets his eyes. "You saved us," she whispers. "After the Battle at Hogwarts we were all but doomed and then you joined. Your money and information keep the Order afloat until…" she pauses, trying to find the right ending for that statement. "Until…" she tries again but comes up short.

He presses his lips to her temple and she feels them quiver before he pulls back.

"You saved us, love."

Furrowing her brow, she tries to make sense of his statement. "I ran."

"No. I hid you. This," he says softly, cupping her cheeks and tapping the temple still warm from his lips. "This is what saved us."

"I… I'm afraid I don't understand." She's whispering again because the moment feels fragile and she's afraid with even an octave higher, the tension will break. "Help me understand."

He pulls something from his pocket, two small vials with a wisp of silver in each and holds it in front of her. "Can you stand?"

She nods and moves from his lap, taking his proffered hand as she rises on unsteady feet. Still holding his hand, Hermione walks down the hall and back into the library behind him. She thinks she hears him laugh and mutter something about books as he shakes his head and runs the tip of his finger along a few of her teetering stacks.

In the far corner, he pulls on a nondescript book shoved amongst the children's texts and she watches as a portion of the wall spins around to reveal a Pensive. Uncorking the vial, he pours it into the swirling basin and tugs her closer. "Ready?"

All she can do is nod before they're both diving headfirst into the memory.

"_I did that to my parents, Draco, and look where that got me!" _

_She can see herself half-dressed with a sheet wrapped around her chest as she paces the floor in a safe house she recognizes. _

"_It won't be forever, Hermione. I would never let it exceed the limit. Hell, I won't even let it encroach on the limit. I swear to you."_

"_How can you promise that? Harry's dead. Ron is dead. The Order is fucking dead and we're two kids who spent half of our school careers on opposing sides of the war somehow hoping to kill the most powerful wizard in history? This is insane, Draco, and even you know it."_

"_Maybe," he breathes, burying his face in his hands and sitting up against the wall behind the small bed. "I don't know what else to do."_

_Hermione sighs and stops her pacing, inching onto the mattress and under his arms. "Okay," she says as a tear spills down her cheek and his silver eyes widen._

"_Okay?"_

"_Okay. I'll do it. But we need a plan. My Occulemcy is already underway. I've been storing away memories for weeks since Harry died in case I was captured. I can do it. I can dissociate entirely if you can root around in my mind and take it all away. When it's as wiped as it can be, I'll let you know. Then the modified obliviate should work for the rest. Make sure to save this one. I read something about key memories and ways to unravel spells and… and… and I can't… I won't… I won't forget this. I just… It'll take… it'll take a few more days to prepare myself and-"_

_He cuts her off with a kiss. Even simply watching her former self, she knows it's a soul crushing, bone crunching kiss like one she's only ever seen in the movies before. When they finally part, the last words she hears are his. "I just need you to be safe. We can't stay here. I'm being called daily and I need to be close. He knows you're out there somewhere and he has everyone looking for you, love. There is no world for me without you in it."_

"_Please don't let me forget." Her words are little more than a whisper as the scene before her dissolves._

Hurled back into the present, Hermione feels unsteady on her feet as she turns to look at Draco. "I did this?"

Even though she now knows the answer, it comes out as a question. Draco nods, cupping her cheek with that same calloused palm she'd felt in her dreams and she lets out a shuddering breath.

"There's one more. Are you ready?"

She nods again and leans forward as the library fades into nothingness and a new memory materializes.

"_Just take them." She knew tears were running down her cheeks but she was sick of crying. "Take them all."_

_Draco did as she asked, pulling a few memories from her mind just outside the wards of the sprawling seaside estate. He'd already contacted Minnie and readied the house for her. "It'll only be for a few weeks. A few months tops." _

"_You can't promise that."_

"_I can and I will. He still trusts me, love. I can use that against him and with the sword you provided I can kill the snake. I just need to be close enough to sever its head and this will all be over."_

"_That's what Ron said," she mumbled, voice thick with tears. "He said the same thing and he, he…"_

"_Shhh. We end this now and I can do it as long as I know you're safe."_

"_I should be with you. I should be the one standing by your side."_

"_You can't. You know that. If he has access to you, even with the walls we've built, he'll shatter ever memory and tear your mind to shreds looking for Potter. He still doesn't know Harry died. We need to keep it that way."_

"_I know." She sniffled, because she did know that, too. Somehow, someway, they'd determined Harry to be a horcrux and he knew it had to end. He thought he'd be the final straw, a sneak attack Voldemort knew nothing about hundreds of miles away. He'd asked Ron to do it and said his goodbyes. They hadn't known about the snake at the time and when a full-fledged raid moved in minutes after the end of Harry's life, she remembers a sense of elation radiating from the troops._

"_This has to be it," she whispered, reaching up to thread her fingers between his fine locks and pressing her lips to his. "Please come back to me, Draco."_

"_I will," he swore against her skin, pouring all he had into the tangle of their tongues and urgent touches. _

"It was your idea to wall off your memories and stay here. This is an old Black property guarded by blood wards only Harry or I could access. You found the place and figured out this plan."

"When did I-" She pauses, feels desperate for a shred of sense she isn't even sure he can give. "I wouldn't have stopped. We sent them all in. We thought they'd defeat him." She's rambling now, sifting through the new memory again and slotting it into its place in files of her mind. "I - I wouldn't have left the safe house, Draco. Not unless… unless… Is anyone-" The words are jammed in her throat, packed so tight none can slip out.

He doesn't say anything for a long time. One minute stretches into the next until she feels as though she might go mad. "We'd waited two days after everyone went to the final battle. We'd been out collecting potions ingredients when the safe houses were burned. We had enough potions to heal the army three times over and none of them were even touched." He pauses, sucking in a breath before meeting her eyes. "It took you two days to realize we were the only ones left and you were hit with a hex to the back of your head as we disapparated."

Even though somewhere deep down she already knew it, the revelation still knocks the wind from her lungs and tears a cry from her throat. She remembers the dwindling numbers, the disappearing supplies that they simply couldn't restock fast enough. She remembers the throb of the back of her head when she first came to in the safety of the estate.

"We did what we had to do." It feels mechanical falling from her lips, a ghost of a memory she still hasn't fully formed. "Obliviation, removing memories, and occlumency. We had to use multiple forms of memory modification to ensure I didn't lose it all like… like… like my parents. But we put in safeguards. I remember. I gave you these memories first, calcified the walls around everything I'd ever known and gave myself headache after headache trying to make sure it was all sealed. You tested me and I passed. Then…" Hermione looks up into the deep silver pools of his irises. She sees specks of blue swimming amongst the sea of silver and her very first formed memory in the estate comes rushing back. "Then you took everything else away. Just… just like I'd asked. Just to be sure." She thinks about the conversation they'd had. If her memories had only risked herself and the order, it wouldn't have been a question of whether she'd fight to the bitter end, but they hadn't. They'd implicated him as a traitor and her mind was filled with damning evidence that would have destroyed them both.

Draco nods slowly before she closes the distance between them. "I love you," she whispers against the cushion of his lips as her arms wind around his shoulders. "I love you," she repeats against the flushed skin of his cheeks. It becomes a mantra said over and over again into every inch of skin she can reach as the pieces of the puzzle finally click and snap into a fully formed picture of the last years of their lives.

Then a new thought forms, and she breathes it into the air surrounding them. "What took you so long?"

He's as still as a statue, his muscles firming up with each passing second. "It was more complicated than we'd expected. He must have felt it when Harry-" He stops. "I didn't see him for months and when I did, he was impossible to reach. It took patience and careful planning and a few victims of circumstance before I could succeed."

She pulls back an inch, eyes widening and tears threatening to spill again as she catalogs the new bumps under her palms, the slashes and gashes she knows weren't there before. She feels the remnants of a tremor pulse through his body that only now notices is far too thin. "He figured it out."

Draco doesn't nod, simply tilts his chin forward an infinitesimal amount and the sting of her cheeks must be from the tears she hasn't even realized are spilling.

"Shhh," he soothes, tucking her back into his chest. "We're here. We're alive. It's finally done."

Only then does she realize the weight of exactly what that means. They're here, safe, alive. For a few seconds, she allows herself to bask in that sole fact as she burrows deeper into his chest and tightens her arms around his waist.

The battles are over, the war is done, but at what cost, she wonders. The death toll must be impossibly high, the list of the fallen longer than any parchment she's ever seen, but through it all, they'd fought. Even though it's a small consolation, it's all she has. He's all she has now, and even though it's not nearly enough, it's the best they could manage and they've made it out alive.

One more tear tracks down her cheek and she allows herself to finally breathe.


End file.
